


this is not a fairytale

by vype



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vype/pseuds/vype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Once you know how everything began, you can know how everything will end.</i>
</p><p>American Gods fusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is not a fairytale

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme prompt: http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2124.html?thread=2053708#cmt2053708

**

then

**

 

"Young man, may I sit with you?"

The sudden voice in the darkness makes Eren look up sharply, pulling his arms upwards in an attempt to prepare for a sudden threat; all it does is make his chains rattle loudly, pulled taut. 

There is a lady in his cell, wearing colorful fancy clothes that have no place being in a dungeon like this. Eren doesn't know how she got here, something makes him slightly afraid to ask. The woman doesn't wait for an answer and delicately perches on the edge of his bed, crossing her knees and placing her hands beside her. She twists her body round to face him, expression curiously blank.

"We all felt it when the she fell," the woman says. Her graying hair, still streaked with fading shades of brown, is pulled tightly into a net, wrapped in a neat little bun that rests at the back of her neck. It's pulled back from her forehead, giving her a tall face, emphasizing the thin lines of her eyebrows, the sharp cheekbones. "For a hundred years, everything was well. You could even say we prospered. But when she fell, it shook all of us." Her eyes are brown like his mother's, but colder and harder, like a pair of amber stones set in her sockets. "Well, my sister- remaining sister- more than I, but nonetheless, I felt it too."

She pauses for a while, looking up to the stone ceiling. "And then when my other sister nearly fell too- well, that was almost the last straw."

Out of the corner of his eye, Eren can see the shadow of the guard to his cell on the wall in front of his cell- it flickers in the light of the torch, but strangely enough the guard himself doesn't appear to move.

"And then, you happened," she says, turning her gaze on him with a sudden intensity that Eren can't help it; he tries to back away. His hands hit the wall behind him- and her stare doesn't relent. "Eren Yeager," she says, "we will be watching out for you."

Her right hand gently brushes against his cheek, and then she is gone.

 

**

a long time ago

**

 

The icy breeze is tireless, dancing over the the small mountain village, battering against the wooden walls and seeping in through glass windows. Frozen breaths hang in the air as if they were permanent fixtures of life. Perhaps, to many of the residents, they seem to be; this storm has lasted for months and still shows no sign of letting up. Nobody has seen the sun in weeks. Their crop fields are frozen over; almost half the village is long since dead.

In one cabin in particular, there lives a man. 

He is crying.

For the first time in weeks, he is not hungry.

 

**

now

**

 

Eren meets the woman once more when he is resting alone after the trial- though perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he finds himself in the sudden company of the woman once more. This time she brings with her another woman; she is also dressed in finery, though her dress is slightly tattered compared to the first woman. 

"I've brought my sister along," the first woman says. "She wanted to thank you."

"All right," Eren says.

The second woman smiles at him, a wide grin so that Eren can see her missing front tooth. "Truly you have saved me- us, even," she says. "Thank you so much." Her voice is slightly rough, as if she were swilling gravel in her mouth. "There really is nothing I can do to show you the heights of my appreciation." Here, her smile shrinks slightly, and her eyes take on a slightly sharper hue. "I suspect the thing you want the most is beyond even us." She glances at her sister. 

The first woman watches Eren very carefully, and when Eren doesn't make any comment regarding that statement, she says, "No, we cannot give you what you want the most. But, perhaps, we can give you something else. Not now, though. Call on us, Eren Yeager, if you have figured out the question you need to ask."

"Just say our names," the second woman says, "and we'll be there."

"What are your names?" Eren asks.

But no, they have vanished and he is alone again.

 

**

a long time ago

**

 

The thaw arrives as suddenly as the frost began.

His son could pass for sleeping, so long as there is a blanket pulled up to his upper chest; chunks of his legs and arms are missing, there are marks on his fingers that match the man's teeth, his chest and torso are littered with slices from the bloody axe in the corner of the room. The man wipes his mouth with his son's shirt, and throws the rag into the fireplace. Later, he will collect firewood, and nobody will ever know.

Alas, it is not meant to be. Neighbors start to visit neighbors, peeking through windows to see who remains alive. And one morning, his son is found.

Of course they cast him out. "He ate his own son," they whisper to each other in the streets, as the weeks past the incident slowly go by. "He cut him to pieces and roasted him in the fireplace and _he ate his son_... He's a monster."

(even though he wasn't the only one. people cling to survival by many means; when earlier it was said that many of the village had died, nobody in particular said that they had _all_ starved)

Despite the slowly melting frost, the wind still stings bitter and cold. He had no time to take even a shabby coat with him. Brown hairs on his arms stand stiff in a futile effort to warm himself. Judging eyes follow his bearded figure until he vanishes from view- the village breathes a sigh of relief, tell each other that the monster is gone, and then return to the ordinary pace of their lives.

When you believe a man is a monster, many things can happen.

(when a man believes he is a monster, he can do many things)

 

**

later

**

 

Eren dreams.

"It was such a shame," the second woman says to him. "When she left, we didn't know what to do. She was the youngest, you know. Head full of adventure, grand ideas about protecting others- she walked away one day and never came back."

"It's unfortunate," the first woman agrees. "But I think she was happy."

"For a while, maybe," the second woman says. "But not at the end."

"Such irony." The first woman sighs. "It was the worst possible death for her. She deserved better than that."

"She was so kind," the second woman says wistfully. "She took everyone as her own. She really was a guardian."

"They believed her to be one." The first woman turns to glance at Eren. "You believed her to be one. Of course she was a guardian. Out of all of us, she was best suited to it. You and I, we can't be protectors."

"Maybe then we weren't. Now..." The second woman trails off. "Well, many things have happened since then. Many things may still happen. We can be guardians like her."

"Within everything lurks a monster," the first woman says. She adjusts her bun, lets it drop directly behind her neck. "Remember this, Eren Yeager. Monsters are not merely mindless, vicious animals. Monsters may have had family too."

 

**

a long time ago

**

 

Years pass in wretched self-torment. He had fully expected to die after the first few months, but somehow he still lives. His hair has grown long and tangled, the hairs on his arms and body are slightly longer. He thinks he might be taller as well. He wanders the mountains for aeons upon epochs- never stopping to allow himself to rest or feed, and yet he doesn't die.

(monsters don't die. everyone knows that. monsters must be killed)

He stumbles upon a different village some vague measure of time later, or maybe no time has passed at all. It's winter.

This feels somewhat familiar to him, but he can't quite recall from where.

There is a young girl, black hair and face dotted with freckles. She sits in the streets, huddled in on herself. A corpse lies to her right- a woman, also black-haired. Perhaps the child's mother. The corpse has not yet begun to putrefy. He doesn't even realize that his mouth has begun to water.

The girl doesn't cry when she slowly crawls over to the corpse. She doesn't cry when he stares into her mother's glassy eyes. She doesn't cry when her stomach lets out a pitiful sound, when surely pains of hunger stab through her abdomen.

And she does not cry as she slowly begins to eat.

The woman's face is so peaceful, the man notices. Almost as if she could be asleep.

After a long time, the girl finishes. She wipes the blood from her mouth, pulls the shirt off the corpse to use as a blanket, and falls asleep tucked inside an alleyway. Perhaps she is dreaming. Perhaps she does not wish to wake up.

(the man wished that he could one day just sleep and never wake. an unending dream of time with a family that is now many years dead. a place of warmth, where reality can melt away, hidden behind a window and only to be looked at when it was bearable to return to. dreams are where forever exists, and where tomorrow doesn't. dreams are so much better than reality, he thinks)

(perhaps this girl would like to share his dream, he thinks)

 

**

days past

**

 

Grisha grew up with horror stories. Or rather, one in particular; his father, and his father's father, and his father's grandfather before that had all told this one tale to their sons. He isn't so sure he wants to tell Eren this story, though.

A man who had eaten his own son and turned into a monstrous beast. Forever wandering the earth, cursed to only cause fear and death, spreading his curse to other depraved souls that he encounters. There are no brave knights to slay this creature, no happy endings or even any sense of an ending at all. A neverending story, a curious legend, from ancient tales that began in the old mountain village that his ancestors grew up in.

When he was nine years old, his father gave him a book. A very precious book, innumerable years old. It's a small leather journal, preserved carefully throughout the years so that it may be passed from father to son. The supposed diary of the man who ate his only family. 

His mother thinks that his father wrote it himself, to make the tale more believable. His father swears on his life that everything is true.

Grisha now holds the book in his hand, glancing briefly over the battered cover. He hasn't really taken the best care of it, one of the few reminders he has of his parents, and some pages are starting to fall apart, but most of it is still readable. Carla is sitting upstairs, watching their four-year-old son play behind their house. Grisha was four when his father told him that story.

He gives the book one last look, and then places it back on the basement shelf. No, Eren does not need to hear this story. Yet.

It is years later, once Grisha knows Carla's secret, once he has his suspicions about Eren, that he thinks maybe his son really does need to know this story. He makes sure to give Eren the key before he leaves.

 

**

someday

**

 

Eren holds the key in his hand. It's been so long since he was here, but he can still remember exactly where his mother had been crushed by the beam. He wonders if now he would be strong enough to pull it off her.

The others are standing away, keeping a tight watch for any titans; they had taken care of all the ones in the immediate vicinity, but more could show up at any time. They had ridden all through the night to get here, and dawn almost approaches.

Which is why Eren really should get moving. The basement, he tells himself.

"You've been staring for a while," a voice says. Eren isn't really surprised to find that it belongs to the second woman. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mikasa and Armin frozen in place, Armin's mouth open, a bead of sweat poised to drip off the end of his nose.

"I didn't call you," Eren says.

"No," the first woman says. "But soon, you won't have need to." Her voice adopts a strangely sad tone as she adds, "Nobody will have any need to."

Eren looks down to the basement key. "Ah."

"Everything's there," the second woman says. "Once you open the basement."

"And then everything's over?" Eren asks.

A short pause. "Not immediately," the first woman says. "Soon after, though. There are important secrets inside that basement."

"Once you know how everything began, you can know how everything will end," the second woman chimes in.

"But, I suppose we must leave you to it. Farewell, Eren Yeager. Do try to remember us when we are not needed anymore." He's gone through this enough times to know that they're about to vanish. Possibly forever, this time.

"Wait!" he blurts out.

They stop.

"Yes?"

"... I think I know your names," Eren says. The second woman smiles.

"Do you?"

"I do, I definitely know your names," he says. "I don't think I could forget you, so you won't have to worry about that. But, at least tell me, my mother's real name isn't Carla, is it?"

The first woman tilts her head. "And if it isn't, what could it possibly be?" She shakes her head. "She was Carla to you, nephew. You believed her to be Carla Yeager, and what more did she need? Whether it was the first name she had or not, Carla was just as real as she was."

"Belief is a powerful thing," her sister adds. "You are humanity's hope; I think you understand the strength of faith more than anyone."

"So, Eren Yeager, what do you believe in?"

Eren closes his eyes, and suddenly a storm of words springs from his mind; he doesn't bother to hold them back, and speaks with every last bit of confidence he can muster: "I believe that in this world, there are things that are terrible and things that are wonderful. I believe that sometimes the bad guys can win and sometimes the good guys can win. I believe that every day people are born and every day people die. I believe that stories are always ending and that stories are always beginning." 

He opens his eyes to see he is speaking to empty air. "I believe in tomorrow."

Far away in the distant horizon, the sun begins to rise.


End file.
